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long walks on cemented expressways;
traffic lights for vegetation;
mosquitoes as wildlife;
fresh zebra crossings suggest spring;
chats misplacing old time addas,
my friend rests, folding thoughts;
sipping coffee spots a coloured map on
the morning newspaper;
memories, miracles, myths, grandma tales
dot a flight path;
grandfather trudged two miles to a temple
from Verur village for a few kaasu to keep
grandma, 12 children -- 11 boys, one girl --
on kanji, curd rice.
grandma, a bone, told Karna tales feeding
palmfuls of curd and rice;
skills eluded them at school;
mortgaged home, lost it.
a son boarded a coal train to an east-bound city;
worked the typewriter non-stop till he stopped.
His son fled to a west-bound city filling registers
in a shipping company,
hibernating in an apartment without a nameplate.
outsourced to Vermont, a new generation earns dollars
thanking an old man's prayers.